Three Alevels on the same day?

[Possiblynotever]

My DD just checked the timetable of her Alevel exams. On the 7th of June she will have three: Spanish, English and Math. I have contacted the school and they say that it is unfortunate but there is nothing they can do about it. Apparently there are " regulations" that deal with this and they will make sure she is aware of them.
I feel that three exams in the same day is truly a very stressful experience and I doubt she will be able to be on top of all the topics.
Is there something that can be done?

It depends on length of each paper and gaps between. It is not unusual to do two in a day or to deal with clashes by isolation periods between one and the next or even overnight. If the papers are short three in a day is not impossible.

Nope. She just has to suck it up. Lots of students end up doing three exams a day.

Unless the total length of all three exams is over 6 hours she will have to do them all on the same day I’m afraid.

That's just how it is.

It's just the luck of the draw I'm afraid. A modern language + Maths is a fairly unusual combination and they are usually timetabled so the vast majority of clashes are avoided, but it's impossible to rule out every single one. They can't be sat on a different day except in very rare circumstances (whereby she would have to be supervised overnight - so a completely last resort!)

@LonelySock

Nope. She just has to suck it up. Lots of students end up doing three exams a day.

This. You can't have a student doing an exam early or later than everyone else for obvious reasons. If there are two exams timetabled for the same time the student will be supervised over lunch time/ break and do it at another time. Sometimes it is necessary to do it in the evening and they will be invigilated on their own.

If they go over the allotted allowed length of papers ( 6 hours total for A level) then she will have an overnight supervision and one will be moved. However if not they will be sat the same day. Remember some A levels actually have 3 hour papers so some will have the same length of exams but for 2 exams.

Frankly I find it incredible that on the last year, after a pandemic, it is possible to ask a pupil to take 6 hours of examination in three completely unrelated subjects because of organisational problems of the exam boards.
Of course they end up with mental health issues due to stress and nobody truly gives a damn.
We are getting just lip service.
There is something very, very wrong with this.

My DD had a clash - geography and French were at the same time. Not sure if it was three exams in one day or just two in the same afternoon. Luckily a friend who did geography had FM (I think) at the same time so she wasn't alone.

From memory they had to do one exam with everyone else then the other in a separate room (think they did geog with everyone then were taken away to do French/FM). Or maybe they did both papers in a separate room. Anyway they obvs were not allowed any tech in between exams but they did have a short comfort/refreshment break while in isolation. It was a long day but it was fine.

It happens with more unusual combinations - which Spanish and maths is to be fair.

It’s not an “organisational problem” - for the exam series to run at all there HAS to be multiple exams at the same time/on the same day or the season would be about three months long!

A lot of care is taken to make sure the most common combinations don’t clash - exam boards will know how often this happens and how many students it will affect and will time it so it affects the fewest students possible. It’s annoying but it’s certainly not because people don’t care.

I had this when I did my A levels over 40 years ago. I did double maths and Spanish, and had a day when I had a full day of exams in all three subjects. You just have to deal with it anyway you can.

Clashes have always been an issue though. Dd had three in 2019. Are you sure they are each two hours though, mfl are usually shorter.

It's not really because of organisational issues tho OP - there have to be some exams timetabled at the same time as others or the exams window would last for months - which would also be bad for students' MH.

As others and I have said, it's usually uncommon combos - not many students sit MFL anyway (sadly) and I guess many of them would pair it with humanities or English. Not blaming your DD for choosing maths, but it's just how it goes. I have just glanced at the timetable and if you did business, eng lang and further maths you would have three on one day. Or economics, Spanish and PE. There are many other examples.

@LIZS

Clashes have always been an issue though. Dd had three in 2019. Are you sure they are each two hours though, mfl are usually shorter.

The A level MFL papers are two hours and two and a half hours (plus speaking but that is done earlier).

Sorry OP but it happened to DD1. She had a clash with English & Physics in 2017. She was advised by school to do the longer one first then a supervised break, then the shorter morning one, followed by lunch, then the afternoon one. The wrong Physics formula booklet was sent to the school which was only picked up just before the exam started so they asked the English group whether they wanted to start on time, or wait for the Physicists. They elected to wait until copies had been downloaded and printed out, around a 30 minute delay. This pushed all her other exams back but she still did fine in them.

I do understand your concern and it is frustrating, but there have to be gaps between the different papers for the same subject to allow for revision. In your DD's case, I would see if she could do English first as that has the greatest amount of writing. You don't want to be knocking an essay out if your writing hand is cramping. Is the Spanish writing, speaking or listening? If speaking, I would argue that it uses different skills and is a break from sitting in silence in a room.

Finally, at uni, in her Masters exams this summer, DD had 4 exams in the space of a week. Each was at least 3 hours long and required uploading, the most traumatic part of the process. It's life; deadlines invariably hit close together and you have to get on with it.

@clary I must be misremembering . dd did 2 mfl and I had thought each component was separate papers.

[quote LIZS]@clary I must be misremembering . dd did 2 mfl and I had thought each component was separate papers. [/quote]
Yay that she did 2 x MFL If it was before 2018 it was the old spec so that may have been true, I have expunged the detail from my memory :)

What do you envision the solution being though? She cannot sit a different paper, nor can she sit it on a different day than the rest of the cohort surely.

This has always been the case and there are often clashes - I had one back in the 1980s and had to spend my lunchbreak in the staff room. My DD had this when she took her GCSEs - there were about 9 of them who had to sit in silence in a classroom eating their sandwiches.

It was good preparation for my university finals when I had 10 3 hour papers in a week. I have never had such bad writers cramp in my life as I did on the Friday afternoon.

They may be able to do one the next day- speak to the school, you may have to sign a form saying you are responsible for them and they can’t go online or speak to friends etc that eve.

Actually @Possiblynotever I have looked at the timetable and the clash is with Eng lit, Spanish (paper one sadly so the longer one) and further maths; the maths exam is AS. Could you have misread (or did you mean FM?). Or is she doing AS maths? Either way it's more than six hours by the looks of it so one may be deferred. That would be a major pain tho, logistically speaking.

@Possiblynotever

Frankly I find it incredible that on the last year, after a pandemic, it is possible to ask a pupil to take 6 hours of examination in three completely unrelated subjects because of organisational problems of the exam boards. Of course they end up with mental health issues due to stress and nobody truly gives a damn. We are getting just lip service. There is something very, very wrong with this.

It s annoying but should not lead to a break down.

Talk to the school

See how they can make the day the least stressful
Or submit some kind of mitigation circs note on the day.

@Possiblynotever

Frankly I find it incredible that on the last year, after a pandemic, it is possible to ask a pupil to take 6 hours of examination in three completely unrelated subjects because of organisational problems of the exam boards. Of course they end up with mental health issues due to stress and nobody truly gives a damn. We are getting just lip service. There is something very, very wrong with this.

Sorry OP but this is why the current youth are called 'snow flakes'. Back in the day or O Levels it was normal to do two papers in a day, both of 2.5 hours.

At high school we started doing exams at 11, in exam conditions, actually stricter, even if you had finished you did not get to leave the room until the set time.

A Levels were 3 hour papers.

Things can be done if there is a clash, one of my friends was taken to a teacher's house for lunch because she had taken an afternoon paper in the morning because of a clash.

I had this many years ago but only with 2 exams. I did the first exam and then was escorted out for a a supervised break and then escorted back in for the 2nd exam.

I can't remember if I got a choice of which order I did them in.